Treaty of Lausanne – 100 years after the division and the deprival of rights

Since the 15th century, the region of the Middle East and the Eastern part of Anatolia have been targets of colonial greed as well as a place of settling calculations between the super powers, leading to continuously concluding agreements and treaties after every war or conflict for the purpose of dividing their sphere of influence.
The most prominent agreement that came into power in this time, was the treaty of Lausanne which was concluded in the year 1923 in the aftermaths of the first World War between Turkey and the European countries; in addition, to the famous „Sykes-Picot“ agreement this treaty precipitated the division of Kurdish and Armenian soil between various states and further blew up the rights of these people to self-determination and the establishment of their own nation states.
This agreement was concluded on 24th July in the year 1923 within the Turkish parliament, which had been recently established by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk after the battle between the Turks under the latter’s leadership as well as Greece, France, Great Britain and Italy. This battle indeed had resulted in Turkey’s control over vast parts of Anatolia, forcing the Greeks and the French to relinquish their claims.
The Treaty of Sèvres was signed in 1920 between the defeated Ottoman Empire, known as the „ailing man“ in the first world war and the victorious countries; its articles 62 and 63 in fact, from the third paragraph had stipulated that the Kurds would acquire their independence and could establish their own nation state whereby the former Wilayat of Mossul should be allowed to be included into Kurdistan. Furthermore, a homeland for the Armenians on their historical soil was also stipulated, in addition to the Ottoman Empire relinquishing many areas for the sake of preserving the interests of the allies and accepting the French mandate in Syria and the Britain’s mandate in Iraq.

Undermining Wilson’s principles to self-determination
The Treaty of Lausanne undermined the clause related to the issue of the right of the peoples, under the control of the Ottoman Empire, to self-determination after the end of the first World War; this right had been coined by the fourteen principles of former US President Woodrow Wilson, and attached the historical lands of these peoples to the new map of Turkey, which Ataturk turned into a republic, thus, putting an end to the era of the Ottoman Empire.

Drawing the geographical maps on the basis of power and interests
Writer and academic Zara Saleh says in this context: „The results of the First World War drew the features of a geopolitical reality and geographical maps drawn by the victorious superpowers after imposing their conditions on the basis of military and economic power and their own interests in the first place; the Lausanne Agreement in its centenary restores to the Middle East in particular the theory of dividing the region between international interests far away from the will of its peoples. But in spite of that, there is a different understanding and reading by all parties affected by the results of this agreement; first of all, the Treaty of Sèvres which had terminated the Ottoman Empire, known as „the ailing man of Europe“ and established, according to international interests and Wilson’s 14 points, Turkey’s maintenance without its Ottomanization as well as the right to self-determination for non-Turkish nationalities, such as the Kurds so they could have an independent state as well as taking into consideration the ambitions of Armenia, while the region was divided between the French and English mandates.

Saleh further added during talks with the „Target“ Platform: „The Turkish national republic, which was established by Atatürk through the Treaty of Lausanne and constituted a victory for them at the expense of other people, no longer catered to the ambitions of Erdogan, except to “restoration” of the soil of the Sultane. He thus, vowed to abolish the Treaty of Lausanne in its centenary, a promise, he keeps repeating in many of his speeches; perhaps, this can be seen in what adjacent countries are currently experiencing in terms of occupying „Syria and Iraq“ as well as military interventions that indicate those “Turkish-Osmanian” colonial aspirations, as happened previously in the case of the Alexandretta Brigade, which Al-Assad later relinquished, hence further indicating that the Kurds were the most affected by the results of the Treaty of Lausanne after the promises of Sèvres and a concomitant opportunity for the establishment of an independent Kurdistan. This was the case in spite of the fact that the majority of Kurdish soil were not inlaced in the map with the Wilayat of Mossul.
However, afterwards, France and Britain and particularly the latter, reneged on the agreement regarding the issue, related to the Kurds in order to put their interests first by placing their hands on Iraq and the Kurdish Wilayat of Mossul as well as the oil supplies; thus, they left the peoples of the region to live throughout the conflict after dividing their land.
Lausanne and with it „Sykes-Picot“ established new borders between the states and divided the historical homelands of the inherent peoples in the region, especially the Kurds, between Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. Those respective countries in fact, commenced with their own regimes since then which sought to fight any project of Kurdish liberation in spite of undergoing developments and huge political changes as well as changes in the form and way of reigning; from monarchial to republican, from parliamentarian to presidential, from the fall of regimes and the emergence of others as well as the occurrence of coup d’état.
Thus, the only consistent pattern was the states clinging to the borders that were drawn by the agreement as well as prohibiting the emergence of a Kurdish State on their very soil, parallel to a systematic policy of fusing other nationalities in these states under the banner of citizenship; this was followed by the subsequent prohibition of teaching the peoples in their inherent mother tongues and the attempt to obliterate their identity and culture in spite of the fact that this agreement had obliged Turkey to not place any restrictions on the citizens in the usage of any language of their choice, whether in private relations or in public meetings or in the areas of religion, commerce, media and publishing.

Demographic alteration plans
Policies in this direction were manifested in their highest form, according to Kurdish activists, with practices against other peoples in Turkey since the signing of the treaty, such as a plan for inducing demographic alteration, changing the demographic composition and emptying some areas of their population, such as Diyarbakir. Regarding to what was said about Atatürk drawing up a plan in the fifties of the last century by reducing the percentage of the Kurds there during fifty years, political historians and analysts attribute most of the crises and conflicts that ravaged the region during the last century to the treaty, directly or indirectly, as it carved out lands in favor of the Turkish State and set artificial borders, in concomitance with the subsequent distribution of certain peoples in several countries separated by these borders.
According to the writer and academic Zara Salih, “Although the Sèvres Agreement partially did justice to the Kurds in its theoretical dimension, Lausanne destroyed that dream and established the geographic fragmentation of Kurdistan between four countries with dictatorial regimes trying by various means to erase and fuse the Kurdish national identity and even the existence of the Kurdish people“. He further points out that the Kurdish perception of the Lausanne centenary is completely different from the Turkish one, which is trying to expand its occupation project – the Ottoman – while the Kurds, on this occasion, find an opportunity in opposition to the decision-making countries, stamped with Lausanne’s ink, for reconsidering the consequences of that map “despite its difficulty“. This occurred in the context of today’s time where there is the possibility of “at least” supporting federal solutions in countries such as Turkey, Syria and even Iran; if we do not accept the matter of supporting the establishment of a Kurdish State for a people exceeding fifty million like the neighboring peoples, then the last solution will be the cornerstone of building stability in the Middle East and this will be an appropriate solution even for Arab countries in its struggle with the expansionist ambitions of Iran and Turkey. Although the Arab regimes attack Lausanne and “Sykes-Picot”, they stick to its consequences when it comes to the rights of the Kurds in these countries, they divulge a state of schizophrenia and contradiction that governs its policy in terms of thought and the racist-chauvinist-vision towards Kurds.
Although the agreement established borders that are not the original borders and carved out lands for the benefit of the Turkish Republic, Turkey still aspires to expand beyond these borders and control new lands in Iraq, the Kurdistan region and Syria; this was clearly demonstrated by the proposal of Turkish officials, led by President Recep Erdogan more than once of a map, known as the “Milli Charter” drawn up by Atatürk before the signing of “Lausanne”, which annexes many regions, including Aleppo and Mosul, to the Turkish State.
Saleh asserts that, “Lausanne is a title for the language of political interests at the expense of morals and human rights treaties and charters. A new review and evaluation must be made, in addition to returning the inherent rights to their owners after a hundred years of injustice, if the desire for stability and surmounting conflicts in the region is genuinely present and sought after; an example of the minimum atonement for Lausanne is to support the stability of the situation in Syria by imposing a federal state formula that suits all peoples and guarantees their rights “including the Kurds” and ends the Turkish and Iranian occupation.
Today, a hundred years after the Lausanne Treaty, Kurdish politicians and activists celebrate two democratic experiences in both Syria and Iraq; the first is an autonomous region whose nucleus began in the eighties of the last century and was established as a unique experience after the fall of the regime of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in the wake of the US invasion. The second experience is a young democratic experience, represented by the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, which proved, despite its young age, that it surely can be emulated as an experiment towards a pluralistic state and the foundation for a next stage in which all peoples have the right to self-determination. Both are heralded experiences in spite of the great challenges, both experiences are facing, which are primarily represented by Turkish threats and attacks as well as the absolute rejection of the countries of the region to further develop this experience and help them towards independence. This was clearly demonstrated during the massive attack on the Kurdistan region during the referendum on independence that were conducted a few years ago.